PIA's first pre-Haj flight from Karachi left today (December 5) with 456 pilgrims on board, signalling the beginning of the national airline's massive Haj operation to Saudi Arabia from five cities, including Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad.
In all, 346 flights have been scheduled by the airline to uplift 1,24,664 intending Haj pilgrims. For the first time PIA will operate 54 Haj flights directly for Madinah, nine flights from Karachi, 23 from Lahore and 22 from Islamabad.
Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, Chief Minister Sindh; Air Vice Marshal M. Safdar Khan, deputy director general Civil Aviation Authority; Kamran Hassan, senior vice-president (Marketing) PIA; Umar Ghafoor, senior vice-president Flight Services PIA; Manzoor Hussain, director Haj, government of Pakistan and senior PIA, CAA, ASF, Immigration and Customs officials were present to see them off at the Karachi Airport.
The pre-Haj operation entails a total of 91 flights, carrying 38,572 pilgrims from Karachi and 73 flights from Lahore, transporting 32,690 intending pilgrims. Similarly, PIA will be carrying 2609 pilgrims from Islamabad on 61 flights, 1595 pilgrims on 75 flights from Peshawar and another 9798 from Quetta on 46 Haj flights. Pre-Haj operations will complete on January 4, 2006.
PIA's post-Haj operations from Jeddah will commence on January 14, 2006.
For convenience of the pilgrims, PIA has made special arrangements to provide complimentary Haj Books (Anwar-e-Harmain and Aamal-e-Haj), Ahrams to male Haj pilgrims and lady gowns to female pilgrims before departure in Haji Camps.-PR